"Photos" by Luc7557 (Luc7557@aol.com). Madeline is a prominent author of erotic stories, perhaps on this very newsgroup. She has a cyberlover in England, but she has no erotic photos to send him. So she has asked Luc and his faithful sidekick Gena to come to her house and take some photos. The rules are that Luc and Gena will just take photos - no funny business - nobody will even touch Madeline. However, Madeline still seems a bit shy - she's hesitant to disrobe for the camera. No problem, says Gena, as she whips off her clothes; how can Madeline be nervous if the photographer's assistant agrees to go naked for this photo shoot? And so, two hours later they have enough pictures to enable her to e-mail Chris one a day with his breakfast until his next visit.

But wait a minute! Suddenly Gena has snapped handcuffs and bondage shoes onto Madeline. Are they going to violate the terms of engagement? No way! They could get bounced from the Erotic Photographers Union for pulling a stunt like that. They just want a captive audience. Maybe next time Madeline can join in. But tonight Luc and Gena just want her to watch - to watch, to listen, and to imagine." Ah, Gena gets really hot, and they change the rules, but not too much.... Well, there's always next time.

This is a good story. I found the second person ("you") point of view to be extremely irritating. As I progressed through the first part of the story, I assumed I would have to dock the author several points somewhere for this silly approach. But the overall story turned out so good that I couldn't decide where to dock him. Instead I decided to give him straight 10's but to make a point about the point of view. It seems to me that the author probably wrote this story for somebody else - probably somebody named Madeline. Madeline probably had about twelve orgasms while she read the story and e-mailed back something like, "This is really good! You oughta publish it!" And so he did. The problem is that the story would have been better had Luc considered that the other people reading this story would not be Madelines. In fact, some of them would be guys. These future audiences would be likely to find the original point of view (which was great for Madeline) to be distracting. I can see no reason whatsoever (other than that it would take time) that this story couldn't be told in the third person.

Some authors (e.g., Plainman) do great things with the first-and-second-person narratives; but they work hard to make these "persons" have personality. This author does not do that. He just insists that the reader take the point of view of Madeline. I don't think that's a good strategy.

On a completely different topic - For those of you who have no kids yet, let me say that you are in for a thrill. As soon as you or your beloved gives birth to a progeny, somehow the photo companies will get your name and they'll lay siege to your domicile, offering you wonderful prices on pictures of your cute little bundle of joy. Knowing that your baby is more beautiful than any other, you'll sign up with one of these photographers for the bargain package; but then your sweet little son or daughter will refuse to smile or look remotely natural during the photo session. Strategies analogous to those employed in this story may come in handy on that occasion. "Shelly's Sex Life" by Mike Hunt (M1KE HUNT@aol.com). Shelly is not Mike's type of woman, but she needs help with her sex life, and she persuades Mike to help her. When Mike helps her, Shelly is a fast learner: she quickly BECOMES Mike's type of woman. Imagine that.

The first week's lesson focuses on attitude and oral sex. The "lesson" is sexy and just plain titillating. Shelly does so well that next she wants to study swallowing, tit-fucking, and anal sex. Imagine that.